Thirteenth
by Bionically
Summary: Arendelle gave Hans a damn good reason for sentencing Elsa to die. It was a moment of weakness that made him spare Anna. He wouldn't make that mistake if he saw her again. Even if his heart told him otherwise. Canon. Hans POV. M for language. Now a two-shot.
1. Chapter 1

If the country of Arendelle thought the Westergaards of the Southern Isles punished Hans Westergaard for his dastardly behavior that one summer, they were in for a rude awakening.

Of course, that depended on what one considered _punishment_.

Hans definitely considered what he had to endure punishment, even if it wasn't the corporeal one that Anna Agnarrsdotter had deemed fit to give him.

Hans had _twelve_ older brothers; he thought it laughable that two sheltered princesses sought to punish him by the public humiliation of parceling him back home in handcuffs with his tail tucked figuratively between his legs. Granted, they were no ordinary princesses; they were dangerous sorceresses wrapped in a thin veneer of social etiquette, kept isolated from the rest of the world by virtue of their geography. Hans had suspected that there was something wrong with the small country with its complete lack of an army and navy, the latter despite being surrounded on all sides by water. The instant descent into chaos the moment catastrophe struck was a telling sign of how much of their governance was for show only.

A fool he to try to gain control through a small window of opportunity and inadequate strategy.

Any humiliation they could think of had already been perpetrated to him in any variety of forms throughout the years. Truly, ignoring him and pretending he didn't exist had been the kindest trick his brothers pulled on him throughout his childhood-and thus the story he thought sanitary enough to share.

Of his twelve older brothers, six were no longer residing in Fuurstenberg, the capital of the Southern Isles:

Karl Walter, the King's other namesake, who had rescued a princess far away and had not returned in years;

Hermann, the younger twin;

Gunther and Johann, the sons of a previous marriage by the King's second wife, who also was the widow of King's cousin;

Dieter, the second Queen's first son to the King;

and Stefan, Hans' full brother by the same mother, the third Queen.

Wilhelm, who acted as Prince Regent ten years ago the King had a sickly spell and now acted as though he were bound to secede to the throne at any time, was the only one married and still in Fuurstenberg.

It was a constant full-on battle in the Palace and the surrounding grounds, and Hans could only blame the tranquil atmosphere of Arendelle for wreaking havoc with all he knew of court politics.

His father, King Walter Wilhelm the Third, was a bear of a man with appetites to match his size: he played hard, he worked hard, and he fucked hard-witness his multitude of sons and not a single girl among the geese, or so the legend went. The king had himself been the third of five brothers, son to a man with seven brothers. Hans had always known he wasn't special in any sense of the word, but by god, he wasn't going to let it end there.

The King's first wife was his second cousin by an arranged marriage, and Helga Van Hoensbroeck was a particularly homely, large woman with two large moles on her face. Rumor had it that the King had actually put a scarf over his wife's face on his wedding night to bed her.

His sons by her, Wilhelm, Karl Walter, and the twins Herbert and Hermann, all resembled her to a nicety. Wilhelm was fat and pompous, Karl Walter Hans remembered as harmless but similarly wide in girth, and the twins he could just about tell apart by the placement of the profusion of moles on their faces, although that was no longer difficult now as only Herbert remained in Fuurstenberg.

When Queen Helga was recovering from her birth of the twins, the King began his torrid love affair with his cousin's wife, who visited from the South East. Yasmin had slanting green eyes and masses of dark hair and her culture to explain her very suggestive clothing. She was a nobody, but the King noticed her bounteous figure and the fact she had birthed two sons to her husband. Tales passed down through the years had it that she adopted Otto in some sort of an attempt to show the King just how maternal and suitable she was to replace his wife.

She succeeded.

The King pulled a codicil from some aged texts and took a second wife. To appease his new and far more attractive wife, he built for her the Flower Palace, a place that rivaled Queen Helga's abode, which was just the Anterooms, a guesthouse of sorts, although it boasted some fifty rooms and was no meager estate in its own right. Queen Helga stayed secluded for the rest of her days, which only lasted for five years, which was how long it took for her opiates to kill her.

Queen Yasmin later gave birth to two boys, Dieter and Friedrich. Friedrich was lame, and Dieter was the wildest man to have walked the halls of the Palace. From a young age, he had no mercy on anyone weaker than he. Some said that Friedrich was made lame by his hands, and many a time did a pet disappear only to be found with its neck wrung or drowned or set fire to in suspicious circumstances leading back to Dieter. Even the King sighed in relief when he left on a quest to his mother's homeland and never returned.

After her marriage, Queen Yasmin disregarded her sons of her previous marriage, Gunther and Johann, both of whom were now married and had left the country long since. And Otto, her adopted son who was Hans' favorite brother growing up, was relegated to being a sort of poor relation. He was, as far as Hans could tell, the only brother not aiming to become King, at least not of the Southern Isles, because he was the only one without royal blood.

Queen Yasmin was so dissatisfied with her two sons by the king-the ones who could rightly ascend the throne through direct bloodline-that she tried all manner of tricks to birth more children, even, eventually, turning to witchcraft. It didn't end well for her, as the King, never one to be faithful in the first place, had her stuffed in a bag and dipped into the ice cold North Sea until she drowned or died of exposure.

Hans' mother was Brigitte Castell. She was the daughter of a courtier who caught the King's eye and as she was of aristocracy, soon parceled off as the third Queen, fifteen to the king's thirty-seven. Hans' older brothers were Stefan, Peter, and Georg, and he didn't like any of them. They had all been taken in by his mother's relatives when young and uninteresting to the King, so Hans wasn't close with any of them.

He was the youngest and was kept close to his mother. Whether because of jealousy or unfamiliarity, they all despised one another. Hans could, however, say with some pride that he negotiated the Court much better than any of his full brothers, having grown up there.

This was not to say that Hans hadn't known the second Queen in his lifetime. He had. King Walter Wilhelm was never one to overlook his possible options and once aware of the codicil on having two wives, he immediately set to work in making Lady Brigitte his third wife. Hans was only around eight years old when Queen Yasmin died. Queen Yasmin was only thirty-seven years of age.

Clearly, the Southern Isles was not a place of longevity.

Three days after he returned from Arendelle, the King had called for Hans to appear before him.

Not for the first time, Hans was glad that Johann, Queen Yasmin's second son from her first marriage, was long gone from the kingdom. That had been the reason his name was shortened to Hans in the first place. With thirteen royal sons (by birth or otherwise) running around the place, and a difference of seventeen years from the oldest to the youngest, names were bound to not be the only thing to run out.

Hans surveyed his father dispassionately as he waited to be addressed. The king was sixty-seven years old this year, a momentous age. In fact, he had been the same age as Hans was right now when he first married Queen Helga, rest her soul. His riotous living had not left him unmarked. The king was riddled with gout and pox and a bad inflammation of the lungs that left him immobile most of the time. His worst illness had been that bout ten years ago, when Hans was fifteen, the year when several of his brothers had conspired to make losing his virginity into a public affair.

Now that he thought about it, he had indeed given Anna a highly sanitized version of his life.

It was a rite of passage for all of them, the losing of their virginity. It coincided with other rites of the Southern Isles, including riding through the Dark Forest on a full moon, swimming across the Forbidden River with a necklace strung of fresh meat, and scaling _Schwelleheilege_ , the Sacred Mountain, with a torch of fire.

Hans was indeed _incredibly_ fortunate to have twelve older brothers. So far as he knew, the rites of passage hadn't been so difficult for Wilhelm, the firstborn. At the time, riding through the Dark Forest on a full moon was already considered the pinnacle of bravery. By the time Hans turned fifteen, however, the rites had been steadily increasing in difficulty and danger until he got the brunt of the worst possible tasks.

That was how old he was when he decided to visit the White Witch. At the time, he had thought surviving a distant hope and death of charges of witchcraft a piddling risk in exchange for the certainty of life.

But that was a tale to be reviewed at another time.

The king beckoned him closer, nodding to his council, who trooped from the chamber to leave father and son alone. The Ring of the Southern Isles had been moved from the first knuckle of the king's pinky finger to his forefinger, a clear sign he had lost weight. He had gained weight steadily his entire life until the past year, when the pounds melted away. The doctors had no idea why and ordered more foods to tempt his royal appetite. Herbs to reanimate his male needs. Revive his failing spirits. Nothing worked.

It was a temporary "resting of the body," they said.

Hans-and most of the inner Court-knew better: the king was dying.

Despite his failing health and age, the king's light blue eyes surveyed him shrewdly.

Hans knelt before the throne and kissed the ring.

The king waved him upright.

"You did not succeed in your quest of wooing the Queen of Arendelle," his father said flatly.

Hans did not speak. Nor did he quiver and shake in his boots. If he were sentenced to death, then so be it.

But somehow he didn't think such a thing would be happening.

"They dispatched a letter to inform Our Royal Highness of the treachery perpetrated in their country," the king continued. "The reason we have allowed a private audience was to learn of your deeds, in your own words."

"The Queen of Arendelle is a sorceress," Hans said flatly. "That is the reason behind their isolationism."

The king was silent. "What proof have you of this?"

"None, save eyewitness accounts," he replied. "Mine own eyes bore witness to her sorcery."

"And she has the country in her thrall?"

"She has mastered her sorcery. My guess is she lost control of her powers at her coronation and ran to the North Mountains to ask for guidance. While there, she has since become the greatest sorceress I have ever seen."

"What powers has she?"

"After coronation and receiving the crown and scepter of Arendelle, the Queen refused to entertain a diplomatic pact between their country and ours. When pressed by Princess Anna, the Queen lost control and caused the entire peninsula to be encased in snow and ice.

"The Princess Anna was completely unaware of her sister's sorcery and begged me to stay in charge while she pursued the Queen to the North Mountain. At the townspeople's behest and a certain Duke of Weselton, I led a troop up the mountains to confront the queen. The quest was successful, though she summoned a giant snow demon to rout us. Back at the castle, the Queen was kept in chains in the dungeon while the council deliberated.

"All were keen to depose the queen but without the fortitude to do so. I was appointed the knight errant to rescue their small country and handed the Sword of Arendelle to do so. Princess Anna also returned, seemingly having been cursed by her sister, but clearly intent on putting me under a new enchantment." Hans' jaw worked as he recalled the scene in the drawing room.

He could still remember the horror with which he had surveyed Anna's clearly otherworldly demeanor. A strand of her hair had been white since they first met, but this new and strange Anna was almost completely white-haired. It had been right in front of his nose, glaring him straight in the eye, and he had ignored it, because he had been taken by a slip of a chit. Enchanted by her lack of artifice when he had been surrounded by it since an early age.

He should have been more aware from the beginning, but he had been blinded. That charming and klutzy demeanor _had been the artifice_.

 _Kiss me, Hans. Kiss me now._

She started to ramble on about kisses, how he must, must, must kiss her at that very moment, pulling his lips to hers ever closer.

He had been about to do it too.

But every warning bell resounded in his head as everything in his brain sought to reject what was before him.

 _Sorcery_ , something had urgently whispered to him. _Don't trust anything she says._

He had been misled by witchcraft before, been promised the world and discovered the treasure ephemeral. Hatred for sorcery did not begin to describe his feelings.

Even now, something inside him seized up as he recalled that moment and what had followed.

 _He hadn't killed her_.

Why not?

To this day, he couldn't face up to his cowardice in that last moment.

He had rambled about his childhood for no reason. He meant to tell her about the name they gave him, the name that made him synonymous with heroism in his country. He was fairly incoherent. In his mind, he considered the possibility that Anna was only one of the Queen's pawns. It was possible. She was sweet and innocent. She was no match for Elsa. Still, it was something that he would only know when he destroyed the Ice Queen.

To this day, he couldn't remember the rest of his conversation with Anna in the drawing room.

Hans forced his fist to unclench and continued talking at his father at an even tone.

"I refused, and set off to execute the Queen, when the Princess somehow appeared and broke the sword with only a touch of her fingers before becoming completely encased in ice."

As expected, his father's eyebrows flew up into his hairline. "Broke the sword?"

Hans' teeth were clenched in the memory. "Shattered it." If ever he had doubted Anna incapable of witchcraft, that was the moment his doubts were laid to rest. He was not called the Witch Killer of the Southern Isles for nothing.

"It is indeed sorcery," his father said, giving his head a little shake as if he, too, could hardly believe this tale. Hans could not, even though he had been there and had run through the memory again and again in his mind.

"You did not execute the princess, then," said his father, and it was almost a question.

"I did not," Hans replied, and stated the same reason he had been telling himself during the entire trip back. "The winter suddenly ended, as soon as it started, and the Queen-demonstrated remorse."

The king frowned, and Hans knew that his father found his leniency weak. He continued: "As soon as the _en masse_ saw the thaw, they too were inclined to forgive their monarch."

The king waved a hand in acquiescence. He understood well the political pressures of being a public figure. There was nothing more powerful than the masses.

"This younger princess," the king said. "She must be even stronger than her sister in power. After all, it sounds as though she were the one who finally brought an end to the Queen's Winter."

Hans had not wanted to voice this thought aloud, so he did not speak.

"What then?" asked the king.

"It is clear to me now," Hans said slowly, "that the two princesses had some sort of falling out prior to the coronation. I was but a bone of contention between them," he said, unable to help the bitter tone in his voice. "When the younger princess encased herself in ice, the Queen voiced her sorrow. Then Anna- _Princess_ Anna returned as pristine as ever. Unharmed."

"An amazing tale!" the king said, adjusting his seat and looking as exhilarated as he did when seeing a beautiful woman. "She encased _herself_ in the ice _._ The younger princess."

"I was myself stunned as anything. I had believed her-innocent and at worst a pawn for sorcery."

"And she was unharmed?"

"Emerged from the block of ice as though a butterfly from a cocoon. Even the Queen was shocked to tears at this show off powers."

"Was that when they denounced you?"

"Oh, the council did that," Hans said with a mirthless smile. "With the two reunited and the Ice Queen back on her throne, what choice had they but to throw all blame on the hastily named regent and ban him from their shores forthwith? I was dragged immediately to the dungeons. Were it not for the celebration afterwards to proclaim the princess's powers, you would not have a thirteenth son today."

"I would not believe a word of it, except that tales of the Great Freeze has reached even this far south. Our trade relations with Pellandia and Roechesling has suddenly ground to a halt because half their fleets were decimated in the North Sea freeze, which has never happened as far back as anyone can remember. Especially not in the middle of summer."

"Yes," Hans said faintly. "As you say."

"And they did nothing further than lock you for the duration of your journey back," the king mused.

"They are not-a well-regulated country. Only a few dozen guards at the castle and most of the staff for the coronation were seasonal workers from the village. It seems to be only luck that they have survived without attack thus far." Or, of course, something far more sinister.

"What advice do you have for us regarding Arendelle?" the king asked, having regained his composure.

"Kill them," Hans said, steeling himself against a pair of bright blue eyes the color of a cloudless summer sky, a laugh that felt like a warm breeze on his skin, and a touch that made him crave what he shouldn't. He looked down at his hand and forced his white knuckles to unclench. "If ever they breach our shores."

"So be it," the King of the Southern Isles proclaimed. "For it shall be known that we do not countenance sorcery, nor foolish accomplices to sorcery, whether out of fear or otherwise. So shall it be that any citizen of Arendelle is to undergo an immediate trial on grounds of witchcraft if they attempt to breach our borders and summarily executed if found guilty."


	2. Chapter 2

It was the sudden, unexpected death of Wilhelm that gave Hans' his unprecipitated turn of luck.

It happened at a state dinner.

The king was turning sixty-nine, and it was an even larger celebration than when he was sixty-eight, or any of the preceding years. On this day, they celebrated a rule of forty years: the king had been coronated on his twenty-ninth birthday, in one fell stroke ensuring the succession through his then three year old son and pregnant wife, setting the expectation for many more boys.

The celebration was to last for forty days. Fuurstenberg had already started celebrating by eliminating taxes on edible and wearable goods for two months. Festivity was in the air.

Hans himself stood to profit from the tax break. In the past year and a half, he had been put in control of the more unsavory aspect of patrolling of the high seas. He had commanded, _in cognito_ , the pirate ships of the Southern Isles.

There was a certain amount of pirateering that was encouraged by the Crown, and the Southern Isles was so exception. It increased profits to the Crown, which only stood to gain by legitimizing such sport. Patrol of territory was carried out in absentia. And disavowing the unsavory aspects of pirating meant the Crown was held unaccountable for their actions up to a certain point.

And if Hans could not command a battalion of troops in the normal scheme of things, he would take what he could get on the high seas, by illegal means.

Under Hans' direction, the pirates of the Southern Isles was more organized, stealthy, and loot had increased twentyfold.

Needless to say, the king was very pleased.

King Walter didn't reward Hans, per se, but he diverted funds from the Navy straight into Hans' control for use in the "promotion of the country's economy and boundaries," as he saw fit.

Hans' brother, Georg, had been beside himself. Without additional funding in the coming year, his fleet of naval ships would be gutted when it came time for re-outfitting.

It certainly made Hans feel a little better for the time when he had been passed over for the Captain of the Guard, or the Chief of the Purse, or the General Steward of the Castle, or any of the many various positions for which he had vied over the years in order to prove himself to the king.

The position of the commander of the unofficial royal pirate ships was possibly the most unsavory of the official court positions, which was why it had fallen to him. It was a position completely off the books and free of public accolades. The navy was in general a motley of the scum of the country, and pirates even more contemptible than that. But Hans was willing to take anything after the debacle of the two years before.

And the king had indeed been pleased. He straightened in his throne when Hans and his men trooped in after a triumphant looting in disputed waters off the eastern coast of Nurmstadt. Hans had brought back riches untold: of silks and satins and lace worth their weight in gold, of pearls and jade and graphite, which was gradually making their way across the country, and the most precious, the jewel of the _kellars_ plant-sheafs and sheafs of the fibers, which could be used for anything from armor to infrastructure construction. Best of all, Hans managed to bring back the plant itself, which the Royal Chemists had noted could be locally cultivated and the fruit and leaves used for additional application.

And for his father, Hans returned with several gifts of the king's favorite variety-women. Specifically, exotic women.

Hans had hand-picked the women himself. It would be no bad thing to be on good terms with the king's next concubine. Raki, Tula, and Bris were varying degrees of honey- and teak-skinned beauties. One was long and leggy, one was buxom and bounteous, and one was just the right mixture of youth and innocence to tempt a jaded womanizer like his father.

Hans left nothing to chance. He had them thoroughly examined by several physicians and he personally saw to their training. He didn't think the king would have anything to complain about.

Indeed, the king was incredibly pleased with all the new treasures.

"I know what you're doing," Georg said from a dark alcove outside the Receiving Hall when Hans was excused from the royal presence.

"Retiring to my chambers?" Hans replied with a lofty lift of his brow.

Georg stepped out, a sneer marking his handsome face. "You're trying to bribe the king. How low. You'll kill him as tempt him with those women."

"And since when were gifts illegal?" Hans replied.

"Isn't three-excessive?" Georg sneered.

Hans almost laughed. Georg was more of a fool than even he realized. Far from being displeased that the king was being bribed by his youngest brother, he was jealous that he had received none of the spoils.

"Hadn't you better abstain from such-proclivities?" Hans asked mildly, noting now the slight tremor in Georg's hands. If his brother were not more careful, he would be felled by the pox long before his father.

"So you did bring back extras," Georg said, stepping closer to Hans.

"I may have."

"And you'll give them up for a price," Georg guessed.

Hans didn't bother to reply. He simply waited.

"Give them to me and you can have whatever you want," Georg said impulsively.

Hans expelled a short laugh. "What, anything for a night of pleasure?"

"Within reason," Georg replied, worrying his lips.

"Sign over the HMS _Bellerophon, Cerberus,_ and _Colossus_ to me," Hans said. "And I'll give you two."

"The _Bellerophon_ is the flagship for the second battle squadron!" Georg said, looking incensed.

"And you can't afford to outfit her this year. I can. Why not concentrate your finances on the first battle squadron fleet?"

Georg squinted at Hans. "And you'll return them to me?"

"Eventually," Hans replied.

"When?" Georg demanded.

"You came to me with a demand," Hans replied, straightening his cuffs. "If you don't wish to bargain, then let me pass."

"Three women. One per ship. And not just for one night. Completely."

"Fine," Hans said, having figured out his brother's appetite long ago and having anticipated this counteroffer. "But make the women last, won't you? No beating them this time."

"That girl was asking for it," Georg sulked.

"I doubt it," Hans drawled. "In any case, if they run away from you, I no longer have any part of it."

"I can do my part," Georg said with a leer. "But I never thought I'd see the day when my little virginal brother became a brothel-keeper." He laughed long and hard, as he had that day when Hans had been caught with his pants down. Literally.

Although Hans hadn't been caught so much as set up to be a public laughingstock.

Now in the dark hallway lit by sconces, Hans didn't give his brother the reaction he was looking for.

"When?" Georg said as Hans walked past him, catching ahold of his sleeve.

"As soon as I have your papers deeding them to my command, of course."

"But what about tonight?"

Hans had already walked halfway down the hall. He didn't bother to tell Georg what his brother would find out in an hour, that some things had to be taken care of on one's own.

X.x.X

There was a private dinner before the capital was opened up for a month-long spate of games. Only family members were expected, so naturally, there were around a hundred people present. A small gathering of the closest courtiers to the crown was to dine in state in the Great Hall.

"My prince," Bris said when she passed Hans in the saloons before the bell would ring to signal for them to sit down to dine.

Hans nodded at her and made to pass.

She made a gesture and Hans halted. "My king is pleased with my prince. He is thinking of bestowing on him the title of the General of the Seas."

Hans idly looked around the room, but no one paid them heed. He bowed to her and handed a glass of champagne with a courtly flourish.

"I look forward to the ceremony," she said, giving him a glance from her dark eyes before curtseying and turning on light feet to leave him.

It was not news to him. The loss of the three ships had been instrumental to Georg's demotion. Not that his brother knew that. The _Bellerophon_ had thrown him off, but it was the _Colossus_ that Hans had wanted. It was inside news, told him by one of his father's paramours who had also been his mother's lady-in-waiting long ago. She had babied him as though she were her own and nurtured his ambition as though it were hers.

The _Colossus_ was a small frigate, hardly worth the money to outfit, but it represented something to the superstitious king, who considered it the luck of the naval commander. To lose it, in any capacity, would be to render the current commander ill-suited for his role.

When it had gone to Hans half a year ago, the king suddenly had an epiphany. Ironic, from the man who decried witchcraft.

Contrary to the misperception of most foreigners, the Southern Isles was comprised of more than the outward archipelago and included continental territory as well.

When Hans first came into age, he had the mistaken impression that the other positions in the capital were more powerful. Certainly they were more prized. The Steward of the Castle was not unnaturally the next king. Wilhelm held the current role and did a credible, if uninspired job at managing the finances of the country. The Chief of the Purse was the elder twin, Herbert, though he was held in check by the High Magistrates, who audited and held the account books. The Captain of the Guard, ironically, was an elite position given to Friedrich the Lame, whose donning of the uniform day and night rather made him a mockery. Of Hans' full brothers, Peter was Keeper of the King's Forests and Georg was the Commander of the High Seas, which position he started to lose tenure when the king named Hans Admiral of Disputed Waters. Now, Georg was in danger of not being demoted, per se, but made Hans' underling. The king was not so impolitic as to blatantly remove office from his sons, and rather, created new offices as he was wont.

Being a Prince was at times less lucrative than being unrelated to the Crown except by ties of fealty. There was no land to be parceled to any of them, unlike those granted to various dukes and earls and barons for their feats of loyalty. For Hans, it was winner take all.

It was rather like putting all his eggs into one basket, but Hans was betting on being the one who wanted it most and who was willing to invest the most into the endeavor.

Hans had already managed to become very friendly with the High Magistrates. The Great Freeze from two years ago had managed to carve out a great hole in their coffers. Many of the items sent out for trade to surrounding countries had been decimated on the seas following the Thaw, with no way to recoup the losses. Taxation was problematic. The country had seen an influx of refugees from Pellandia following the Great Rebellion that took place there, one that the Court Philosophers laid at the door of high taxation.

Thus the current forty-day tax break for all Southerners.

What Hans did essentially was beat the system by thievery in the open waters. The High Magistrates publicly condemned him for it and loved him secretly for solving their economical problems. The Crown absorbed everything he confiscated from other ships under the guise of piracy.

When the bell resounded, everyone but the king moved into his or her seat in readiness to eat. In the interest of space, there was the high table, and then three tables that abutted down the length of the great hall. It was a very crowded affair, and it was with some acrobatics that prevented many a servant from an accident involving a boar's head dish or other delicacy.

Hans was seated in the middle abutment, near the head table, along with the members of the General Council.

He listened with half an ear to the conversation around him, always keeping an eye out for the high table. It was probably how he was the first to jump into action.

The eldest Prince, Wilhelm, was coughing while his wife continued to pick at her treacle tart and play with her pearls. In recent years, Wilhelm had grown exceedingly large. He had always been a barrel-chested man, but now there were additional chins under his face. Georg liked to snicker about how his poor wife, as thin as a beanpole, managed not to break under the weight of the eldest prince during their copulation.

Wilhelm was choking.

The king was speaking at some length on one of his early and pivotal battles, his favorite tale. A few sidelong glances at Prince Wilhelm displayed his annoyance at his son's inability to cough at a lower volume.

When Wilhelm lurched to his feet, his pudgy beringed hand at his throat, Hans acted.

Hans leapt clear over the high table, grasped Wilhelm around the middle and pounded his back for all he was worth.

Wilhelm continued to choke.

"Water!" the king cried, looking alarmed now. "Bring the prince water!"

In a thrice, water was brought by the pitcher. Hans had barely spoken the words, "no, he cannot breathe!" before a few of the footmen grabbed Wilhelm's frantic arms and poured water down his hatch.

Hans, standing behind Wilhelm, was splashed across the lapel with water as Wilhelm struggled under the inexpert care forced on him.

By the time the minstrels had finished plying their instruments, the First Prince, Wilhelm Westergaard the Fifth, was no more.

And the heir to the throne was once more an open position.


End file.
